Quick Update on Sudan and Tunisia

I was exhausted after that long post yesterday (please DO check it out below) so one thing I didn't have a chance to talk about was the announcement on Monday of the results of the referendum held in Southern Sudan. Some of you are probably aware that, as a part of an agreement to have a ceasefire between the almost constantly fighting South and North in Sudan, it was agreed that a referendum would be held on whether or not the South would split from the North forming a brand new country. While North Sudan is largely Arabized and Muslim, South Sudan is more typical of Sub-Saharan Africa, so there were serious differences to overcome, especially when there were questions of implementing Sharia Law across the whole country, even to non-Muslims. Surprisingly, dictator (and North Sudanese) Umar Al-Bashir allowed the referendum to take place, and amazingly the results were almost 99% in favor of forming a new country. That kind of voting strength speaks volumes, especially because a lot of the voters, up to 85%, were illiterate and had to choose between an image of hands clasped or an image of a hand palm outward. The image of hands clasped, representing unity with Northern Sudan, only received 1.17% of the vote.

Unfortunately this vote has little to do with the Darfur conflict, which is complex in a different way (it's between two Muslim groups) and this conflict has not been affected by the vote (it is still a part of Northern Sudan).

For more on Sudan, go here: http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/02/07/sudan.referendum.results/index.html


The other thing I wanted to briefly mention is that we still haven't heard about the Tunisia revolution and its ongoing problems. In my last post I mentioned that Tunisia's revolution was quick and largely successful, which was only partially true. More clearly, violence is still an issue there, and the interim government is wading through dark waters at this time.

For more on Tunisia, I recommend this: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/02/20112892047655465.html


Enjoy!